While China continues to claim Arunachal Pradesh as its own, technology giant Google seems to have decided to take a line to please both Beijing and New Delhi.

On the Google Maps site localised for users in China (http://ditu.google.cn), Arunachal Pradesh appears as part of China. On the site for users in India (http:// maps.google.co.in), Arunachal appears in the way India sees it — as an integral part of India. And for users in other parts of the world, the site http://maps.google.com shows Arunachal Pradesh as a "disputed region", like Kashmir.

Google, which has massive stakes in both India and China, has clarified that it is its "standard practice" to depict any country's official position on Google's localized domains for that country.

"Products that have been localized to the local domains of a region depict that country's official position on the region. Therefore, the map of India as available on maps.google.co.in represents the official position of the Government of India, and other country level domains may similarly depict their respective official positions," a Google India spokesperson clarified.

On global properties, the disputed regions are depicted as per the claims of the disputing parties, the spokesperson added.

Ahead of the Sino-Indian talks over the border dispute this August, it had emerged that Google maps marked areas of Arunachal Pradesh, including its capital Itanagar and Tawang, in Chinese script rather than in Hindi or English. The maps showed all of Arunachal Pradesh with dotted lines, signifying its disputed status. Google later admitted its mistake and rectified it for Indian users.

Earlier, in 2007, Google showed Indian boundaries as coinciding with Assam's, with Arunachal 'disputed'. This too was subsequently rectified.

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